According to Carol L. Tilley, a professor of library and information science at the University of Illinois, comic books are just as valuable to children as any other form of literature. And in research recently published in School Library Monthly, the professor says it’s about time this underrated yet sophisticated type of reading material got a little r-e-s-p-e-c-t.

“A lot of the criticism of comics and comic books comes from people who think that kids are just looking at the pictures and not putting them together with the words,” Tilley says. “Some kids, yes. But you could easily make some of the same criticisms of picture books—that kids are just looking at pictures, and not at the words.”

Instead of dismissing comics as potential texts, she says, librarians and teachers should embrace them as another literary genre that readers must approach by understanding the relevant social, linguistic, and cultural conventions. “[I]f you really consider how the pictures and words work together in consonance to tell a story, you can make the case that comics are just as complex as any other kind of literature,” Tilley says.

And ironically, in recent years mainstream children’s books have begun adopting some of the features traditionally seen in comics—such as frames and speech bubbles.

“There has been an increase in the number of comic book–type elements in books for younger children,” Tilley says. “There’s also a greater appreciation among both teachers and librarians for what comics and comic books can bring to the classroom. For example, the National Council of Teachers of English sponsors an instructional Web site called “Read, Write, Think,” which has a lot of comics-related material. Instructional units like these would have been much more rare 10 years ago.”